I'll admit to being very hesitant to click this link when I friend sent it to me. More questions about Love's present and future, I suspected. It turned out to be an interesting and well-thought-out article. Worth a read.

(10-11-2018, 12:25 PM)Hank 91 Wrote: I'll admit to being very hesitant to click this link when I friend sent it to me. More questions about Love's present and future, I suspected. It turned out to be an interesting and well-thought-out article. Worth a read.

(10-11-2018, 12:25 PM)Hank 91 Wrote: I'll admit to being very hesitant to click this link when I friend sent it to me. More questions about Love's present and future, I suspected. It turned out to be an interesting and well-thought-out article. Worth a read.

This embodies my feelings about how Love is being misused this season. Get the guy in space. Create 1-1 matchups he can win!

How? You saw what happened when we tried to throw it to him against ND. He was double covered. Love attracts more attention than even CMac did. The touchdown play in the Rose Bowl has indelibly imprinted on all opposing coaches the idea of "Don't let Stanford's star back beat you, no matter what." Love will be followed and chased wherever he goes. He isn't going to get 1 on 1 in space.
The good news is that this obsession will create opportunities for other players to be open. The bad news is that we usually need to keep a back in to pass protect. If we could avoid the latter restriction by moving the pocket (or any other way) then maybe we can get Love some space. But it isn't going to be easy.

Interesting that the article noted Love's limited potential between the tackles. I think Love has been surprisingly effective between the tackles before this year, but the over reliance on his home run potential and predictable use has put additional pressure on his inside running that he will never face in the NFL. No one who calls plays on Sundays thinks his OL should consistently open holes while running against numbers.

This embodies my feelings about how Love is being misused this season. Get the guy in space. Create 1-1 matchups he can win!

How? You saw what happened when we tried to throw it to him against ND. He was double covered. Love attracts more attention than even CMac did. The touchdown play in the Rose Bowl has indelibly imprinted on all opposing coaches the idea of "Don't let Stanford's star back beat you, no matter what." Love will be followed and chased wherever he goes. He isn't going to get 1 on 1 in space.
The good news is that this obsession will create opportunities for other players to be open. The bad news is that we usually need to keep a back in to pass protect. If we could avoid the latter restriction by moving the pocket (or any other way) then maybe we can get Love some space. But it isn't going to be easy.

I'm not paid millions of dollars to figure it out. But even if I weren't paid millions of dollars to do it, and my job was to figure out how to do it, you bet your ass I would find ways to get Love the ball in space. Football can be a game of creating favorable match-ups by formation and proper play design. But it all must be done in the context of a greater offensive scheme that allows favorable matchups to be created.

I agree that in college, Love has and can be effective running between the tackles. He just needs a crease to get through. Last year demonstrated it doesn’t have to be a gaping hole for him to be successful, but he has to have enough space to make it through to the second level. That happened last year, but is not happening this year (and as the analyst points out, are less likely to materialize in the NFL).

Also, there is a tendency to overvalue a running back’s speed and ability to get to the edge and unervalue the offensive line, tight ends, and wide receiver’s ability to seal the edge.

If you look at the big run against SC, Love outrunning the middle linebacker and safety (who both took bad angles) was part of the key to success, but the big key was that each of the tight ends (we were running a three tight end set), blocked their defenders successfully. Too often this year those blocks have broken down and Love, while good, can’t always take on an unblocked defender.

Quote:If you look at the big run against SC, Love outrunning the middle linebacker and safety (who both took bad angles) was part of the key to success, but the big key was that each of the tight ends (we were running a three tight end set), blocked their defenders successfully. Too often this year those blocks have broken down and Love, while good, can’t always take on an unblocked defender.

BC

Unfortunately, holding him out of the Utah game pretty much dropped him to a 3rd round status at best. He's now got the dreaded "injury prone" tag.

This embodies my feelings about how Love is being misused this season. Get the guy in space. Create 1-1 matchups he can win!

Can you please describe what that would entail, other than getting Love a better offensive line? We've tried to throw it to him a few times; he has six catches for 34 yards, which is 5.7 yards per catch and doesn't include the near interception when we ran him on a wheel route and he was double covered. The site highlights a few successful runs outside against USC, and I think it is a reasonable thing to try when the defensive end is trying to crash inside and you can make him lose contain.

But many of the other things we've done to get him in space (screens, for example) have been nothing short of a disaster.

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